


Fireflies

by sylveonimbus (cloud_sakura)



Category: Adekan, Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, THIS IS NOT AN OMEGAVERSE FIC, Twilight References, except for the friendships they're all important, more relationships and characters to be added as we go along, relationships listed in order of importance, shapeshifter!Nekoma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 15:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3856222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloud_sakura/pseuds/sylveonimbus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daichi Sawamura did
not ask for the fantasy romance novel life. The fantasy romance novel life chose him. And
no, for god's sake, Kuroo, he <i>does not</i>
want to be an Alpha, <i>stop asking</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astroturfwars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astroturfwars/gifts).



> this is at least 50% femi’s fault, even though she wasn’t aware of it, bless her. and you should all go and read fifty shades of kuroo. that is all.
> 
> thank you, hq tlist, for supporting me in this ridiculous venture.
> 
> and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FEMI!!!! *crackers emoji* i hope you enjoy this piece of shit fic born of a meme!!

“You’re not doing this alone.”

“Oh, but I am.” He moves into the shadows, almost swanlike in his grace, and that’s when he realizes that he’s not the same person anymore. One blood-red eye, almost obscured by long, beautiful eyelashes, blinks at him sweetly, and the other brown eye is deadened. He’s not hearing him at all.

He steps back, hoping that the hammering in his chest makes up for the faint noises behind him. Tobio is still breathing. The other kitten is still out there, circling the forest, looking for them. Tobio’s going to be safe. He just needs to buy time.

He changes tactics, desperate. “This isn’t you. You’re doing exactly what you hated the Swan Hunters for doing – you’re becoming one of them, one of Ush –”

“Don’t presume to take the name of our Leader,” he snarls, unsheathing the blades at his sides. Daichi closes his eyes. He’s too far gone. The first time was a lucky getaway – but this time –

_I’m sorry, Iwaizumi. I’ve failed you._

The bond strains, whispers of “ _Where are you? He’s looking for you!”_ echoing in his head. The creature in front of him spins the blades once in his hands, and Daichi remembers the knife that he’d left back at camp, unwilling to admit that he might need it against _him_ of all people, despite the Alpha’s protests.

(That’s all he’ll ever be. His Alpha.)

 _I’m sorry, Tetsurou,_ he thinks, over the rapidly anxious bond, as the Hunter saunters forward to kill him.


	2. first light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> onto the main course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> meet confused ex-jock, daichi sawamura, as he navigates the human jungle of forks high school with a little help from his not-friends.

“I’ll call.”

His best friend stares back at him unblinkingly, and he sighs. “ _Fine_ – I promise I’ll call, okay?”

“You had better,” Koushi says, and adjusts his collar, which had been poking him in the jaw. “And if someone thinks you smell funny, please start running.”

Daichi makes a face. “You _promised_.”

“Yeah, I’ve nearly exhausted my quota for today, but trust me on this: you smell amazing, because I picked out your cologne myself last week, and the shopkeeper told me that it’s SPF 100.”

“Cologne – SPF – what?” He should be getting in by now, and his mom is already waving at him impatiently, but Koushi has a really serious expression on his face and this could be something important.

“Supernatural-proof, obviously.” Koushi cracks up at the look on his face, and Daichi literally growls. “Two strikes, Sugawara.”

“I’m so sorry – I had to,” he gasps. “C’mon, don’t be a spoilsport, you’re scaring them.”

Behind him, Ikejiri laughs nervously. “At least he doesn’t have a ball handy to hit us with.” The team laughs at that one, and Koushi’s impish grin turns a little solemn. “Don’t forget us, okay? The kids will be concerned if you don’t keep in touch.”

One of the underclassmen nods vigorously at that one, and Daichi is reminded of those bobble-head toys he used to play with when he was little. He feels bitter – horribly bitter, to be honest, that he’s not going to be around for their last year. Their hopeful looks speak enough, and Koushi’s trying to be cheerful for them, but he knows that he’s bitter too. This was supposed to be their year, the year they made nationals with kids who’d been training since their freshman year – Daichi and Koushi had built up this team from scratch, and now he’s leaving them when they need him most.

There’s no point being overdramatic about this, though – not when he has to leave in two minutes at the latest and with the entire team in front of him. There’s a lot left unsaid, but he can’t bring it up now.

“You’ll make a good captain,” is what he says instead, and Koushi’s eyes widen, a deep flush settling onto his cheeks. It’s almost amusing how easily he gets flustered at any compliments from anyone. “And y’all – just go to nationals for me, won’t you?”

“AYE AYE, CAPTAIN,” the younger ones bellow, and Ikejiri whacks them. Koushi’s eyes are shining, and his grin is back again. “How conceited of you to think we’re winning just for you.”

“Win a match or two without me, and we’ll see,” he shoots back. “Maybe I’ll end up going to the Inter-Highs in Seattle to see one, you never know.”

“Oh, but captain, how’re you gonna do that?” Ikejiri says, and Daichi doesn’t like his tone or the teasing smile on his face.

“Seeing as you’ll be glimmering more than our shiny cup when we win it,” Koushi finishes, and this time the entire team cracks up, even the younger ones joining in the laughter. Daichi’s eyebrow twitches. “OUT, ALL OF YOU.” He turns around and stomps inside the waiting area.

“You can’t use baseball analogy unless you’re going to be playing it with vamps out there!” Koushi cackles; and he hides a smile as he goes through checks and up to his mom, who’s fidgeting so much in her seat that the people beside her are eyeing her.

“Oh good, I was beginning to get worried they kidnapped you after all,” she says blithely, and Daichi’s irritation flares. “Now, now, don’t look at me like that – I did tell you that I’d leave you here if I could, you know.”

He _does_ know, which is why he can’t even blame her. Daichi guesses that’s probably why he’s even more annoyed at this situation. But he knows, somehow, that they’re going to be okay without him, and he refuses to feel lonely about it.

The last person he’d talk to about that is Mom, anyway. He sits down beside her, and studies her from the corner of his eye as she types away something on her tablet. She’s pretty, he supposes –  with russet-colored hair, with red eyebrows, brown eyes and purely Caucasian features to match, dressed in a crisp brown business suit and pencil skirt, and the kind of stiletto heels he’d only seen Ikejiri wear once when they were playing Truth or Dare in class.

She doesn’t look even remotely like his mom. Hell, she doesn’t even look like a history professor. He’s not sure what they’re supposed to look like, but he usually associates them with the dusty, bespectacled getup of his own school librarian.

(Not his own school anymore. As of today, he’s unofficially enrolled in Forks High School, Forks, Washington, and it’s going to be official as of tomorrow.)

Entering the plane seems really final, somehow, and he reminds himself that he’d been ready for three weeks for this – a plane isn’t a big ordeal.

“What’s Forks like, Mom?” he asks, once they’re strapped into their seats. It’s silly to ask, because he knows – from questionable literature, at least – exactly what it’s like, but he’s suddenly unbearably curious.

“Different,” she replies vaguely, still tapping away at her tablet, “from what you expect.”

He doesn’t let his irritation show, choosing to slouch in his chair instead, and wonders if he can get away with sleeping the entire trip.

(Wonders, to himself, what he expected.)

***

He falls asleep midway through the flight, but the drive down to Forks is tedious to say the least.

At least his ride is nice enough that he won’t need to call a tow truck at the first opportunity. 

Mom is amused at his gawking of the police car that pulls up to them, and tells him that she bought them a car too. He’s allowed to drive it as long as he doesn’t crash it, of course. “Or get it crashed,” she says on the drive home, a hint of a smile on her lips. Daichi would have found it funnier if the guys hadn’t been running him ragged with vampire jokes for the last three weeks. The driver is apparently a policeman who lives in the neighborhood, however, and he finds it very funny indeed.

Daichi is almost tempted to tell him that flirting with his mom is kind of futile, but he’s not in sunny rainbow-themed California anymore, and he’d be more upset about the fact if he wanted to get a boyfriend in the first place. The small-town mentality, though, is _definitely_ going to hurt his mom’s reputation if news about her preferences gets out. It’s bad enough that she’s a single mom at thirty-six and not planning to get hitched anytime soon.

He doesn’t know how she manages it, but she does, and that at least, is something he’ll always admire about her.

The policeman – Mr. Faraday, he learns – drops them off just before the main part of the town, and tells them to drop by whenever they feel like it, mentioning his lovely daughter, who’s apparently Daichi’s age and goes to his school (which is the only school in the district, Daichi doesn’t add). He suppresses a groan at the fact that he’s already expected to assert his heterosexuality, and his mom sends an almost-sympathetic smile in his direction. Daichi looks out of the window instead, choosing to focus on the incredible scenery. It really is more beautiful than he expected, and he can see wildflowers growing like weeds everywhere on the sides of the road.

Their new (in a manner of speaking) place, too, is not what he expected at all.

Chihaya Sawamura hadn’t been a particularly ambitious or successful woman, but with her savings she’d managed to erect the nicest cottage just a little off the road, near a brook that trickles past into the woods and probably converges with a lake deeper inside the forest. She must not have been particularly bright either, because the mosquito population is also at its peak around here. He swats at his legs and comes away with three flattened mosquitoes and some blood on his hands, and makes a face. He’ll have to go out and buy some Deet at the supermarket as soon as possible. There are cats skulking around here too, and that pleases him. He had one at home, and it’s comforting to know that the critters will be sneaking in to steal the milk once in a while. The russet-and-white one watches him with golden, beady eyes, and he bends down to let it sniff his finger.

“Sweetie, you can play with the cats later, honestly,” his mom calls, and he scratches the cautious kitten on the chin once before bounding up the steps and through the open door of their new home.

The inside of the house is so nice that it almost makes up for the mosquito bites. The doors and windows are all painted in shades of orange, and his mom scrunches up her nose at the slightly musty atmosphere. “I’ll turn on the air conditioner – don’t open the windows, okay?” She goes to find the main switch, and Daichi studies the living room. 

There’s a lot of pretty rosewood furniture with new orange covers and red cushions, and the wallpaper has already been changed as well. The floor is wood-paneled as well, and it looks much more posh than their earlier house. He wonders how it looked before the renovations. 

He goes up to his room to check if his stuff’s arrived as well. Sure enough, his luggage is there, still packed, and his bed is there, mattress intact. His mom must have made it the last time she was here, because he recognizes the sheet as one of his old ones from the apartment back in Los Angeles. He slips down onto it to look at the ceiling. There are glow-in-the-dark stars on there, and he feels a pang of déjà vu. This is the childhood he’d missed.

“Daichi, where’d you go?” his mom calls, and he yells back “Upstairs!” before getting up. He should probably go help her. He pauses at the door to the room, just to look around one more time, study the empty shelves and mentally check off where to keep his stuff.

Surprisingly enough, there’s a framed photo of two women and a child in a small nook underneath one of the glass shelves, and he’d have missed it if he wasn’t paying attention to the details. He goes up to it, picking up the photo, avoiding the other knick-knacks in the opening.

The picture, of course, is of his family. Mom is in the background, and smiling adoringly at the woman who has her chin on his head. Black pixie-cut hair and distinctly Japanese features, with startling green eyes and a small grin on her face directed at Mom, showing small, pearly teeth. Chihaya Sawamura and Eleanor Evans, with their first (and only) kid. He can’t be more than three in this picture.

Thirteen years, huh.

He has no idea what the photo is doing here, but he doesn’t ask. Mom had always been very touchy on the subject of Chihaya, and Daichi’s learned, in the thirteen-odd years he remembers spending with just her, that the topic of the woman who gave birth to him is off-limits.

“Daichi, honey, can you see if the AC works now?” Mom calls, and he quickly sets the frame down, pushing it back into the nook and upsetting a few other things inside it. He can fix those later. He goes up to the air conditioner and pushes the switch, and it flares to life. There’s a collective sigh of relief, and his mom gets down from the stepladder. “I’ll close the door.”

“I’ll make the tea!”

“Bless you,” she says absently. “Don’t forget to call your friends, honey.”

“After tea,” he insists, and she sends him a tired grin. “What did I ever do to deserve a son like you?”

 _A lot,_ he thinks, but the guilty feeling that he gets from it makes him wonder who the sardonic comment is directed at – himself, or her.

There’s a storm brewing outside when he arrives in the living room with the tea, and Daichi frowns at his mom, who’s staring out of the window. The air conditioner is still humming, but he’s pretty sure that opening the window now won’t do any harm.

“I’ll go open the window,” he says, after he sets the tray down. She sharply turns to him. “Don’t.”

“Don’t?” Daichi is nonplussed.

“Don’t open the windows.” She leaves it at that, and Daichi remembers one night many years ago, when the storm had been so bad that she’d crept into his room and under the covers, and she had closed the doors and windows, even the flap for the cat. He’d been thrilled to get cuddled, but she had shivered so much that it had left a strange impression on his memory.

Speaking of which – he misses that cat. “You think Koushi’s going to remember to feed Nick?”

“He’ll be okay,” his mom says, and her expression is back to normal. It’s that teasing one she often gets whenever Koushi comes into the conversation. “Mom, no.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

There’s a contented silence after that as they drink their tea, and though Daichi catches her looking at the window more than once, he doesn’t say anything about it.

Everyone has their own demons, after all.

“What about the cats outside?” he asks, belatedly, when it starts raining. Mom pauses at the doorway to the kitchen with the tea-tray, and looks at the window again.

“They know where to hide,” she says.

The _we don’t_ , goes unsaid. 

***

Daichi wakes up with a distinct sense of foreboding.

The foreboding turns out to be one skipped alarm, and twenty messages from an irate best friend. He grabs the beeping phone off the bedside table, and sees the time and drops it in shock. _I slept for eight hours?_ He sits up and stretches, picking up the phone again, and slides open the lockscreen to see the _I’m going to take the next flight to Seattle and fucking kill a vampire, Daichi_ text that freezes him down to his bones.

“SHIT, I FORGOT TO CALL,” he yelps, and drops the phone again.

“STOP YELLING,” his mom yells upstairs, and the morning descends into chaos.

“You are not phoning me while driving,” Koushi says twenty minutes later, tone flat as a board, and Daichi winces and stops moving the key in the ignition. “No, you’re probably late for school; I meant that you’re calling me _after_ you’re back from school.”

“I’m really, really sorry,” Daichi says. And he really is – the storm had been really bad last night, and Mom had gone to bed early; and between distracting her with shitty reality TV and dinner, he’d had his hands completely full, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that he’d promised to call and forgotten completely.

“I know you are.” Koushi sighs into the receiver, and Daichi can almost picture his concerned face if he closes his eyes for a second. “Look, we really miss you, okay, and it might sound a bit pathetic, but we need you to have our backs when no one else does. And the competition –”

“–is next week, yes, I know.” He misses them too, misses them like a ripped off limb he never knew he had. “Some site is bound to livestream the game – I’ll be there, I pro – no, I _will_ be there.”

“I’m not disputing that.” Koushi’s voice goes warm. “And you’ve gotta see how much Sorey has improved as a spiker, too – he’s going to be the star of the team, I can tell. We’ll talk later, okay? Tell Miss Evans I said hi.”

“Sure. 

The car is a work of art. He’d have never managed to afford it on his own, at least not with the money from last summer. A pizza place job after volleyball practice was all he could manage without falling over from exhaustion.

No point in being bitter about that now. That money’s going into his college fund, at least, and now he can actually use it without spending it all on a rundown truck. Plus, his mom’s less likely to fuss over him driving this thing than a used car. She already looks pretty pleased, as she opens the door and gets in on the passenger side.

“Surely you aren’t planning to give up on your morning jogs, are you?” she says as she buckles herself in. She’s got her overcoat in her hand and is wearing a blue business suit today, almost identical to the earlier one except for the emerald brooch she’s pinned to her lapel.

He stiffens. “It’s not like I’m getting a volleyball scholarship to get into university, you know.”

“Nevertheless, I’d hate to see you lose shape.” She pokes at his stomach, and he squirms away. “Mom, I’m trying to drive!”

“Right, you aren’t ticklish at all.” Her smile is gently amused, and he fumes as he turns his attention to the front again. One of these days, he’ll have to figure out how to stop her from treating him like a seven-year-old.

Forks High School is just another unassuming red brick building off the road, and they get there in around ten minutes. He mentally calculates the distance in his head – it wouldn’t take him more than half an hour, especially considering the lack of traffic while running. At least he won’t run into irate businessmen who make him pay for their frappe (or if he was particularly lucky that day, their dry cleaning) when he inevitably collides with one of them.

He’s still not doing it, though. No point, no point.

He gets out of the car, and immediately regrets not wearing a coat. It’s _freezing_ cold here, even more than back at the cottage, and he’ll have to run in the rain if he doesn’t want to get veritably drenched.

“Think you can find your way on your own?” Mom says, as she gets out, squinting at the stone pathway down to what seems like the office.

“ _Yes._ ” Daichi looks around cautiously, but no one seems to be close enough to have overheard them. He doesn’t know how he’s going to handle the embarrassment otherwise.

“If you say so, then.” She gets in the driver’s seat this time around. “Go along now – you’ll catch a cold at this rate.”

***

The woman at the counter is absolutely disinterested, to his great relief, and wishes him good luck as she hands over the necessary documents. Daichi pockets the slip and the map, and makes his way outside, briskly walking up to the next building. He’d try to run if there weren’t that many people staring at him walk past.

Everyone’s staring even more when he enters the hallways. He keeps his eyes on the map, trying not to look as self-conscious as he feels. _You’re just a wet person. That’s probably a bit unusual. You can bring a coat next time._ There _has_ to be some friendly chess club nerd or even a jock who thinks he’s into football. It’s in all of the scripts.

He’s still trying to figure out the map when he bumps into someone. Koushi used to joke that he does the meet-cute thing with every stranger he meets, and it’s never amusing to be the other person. 

The tall boy who appears in front of him at the lockers is smiling, however, and Daichi nearly drops the brochure. He doesn’t look anything like a chess club nerd.

“You’re Daichi Sawamura, aren’t you?” The boy says brightly. The pretty black-haired kid next to him slinks behind him, looking bored. Daichi can’t even be sure it’s a boy, but when the kid openly starts flirting with the girl who stopped next to her own locker, he assumes that there’s a 90% chance they’re one.

“Er, yeah. Is there a –”

“Great! I’m Kojiro Yamada, it’s nice to meet you.” He’s surprisingly nice, and it’s a welcome thing. “I’m in the kendo club – yeah, we have that here. It’s pretty recent, though.”

Daichi blinks. “Whoa.”

“Yeah, even Shiro here’s in it – Shiro, for God’s sake –” and he trails off in a torrent of fluent Japanese that Daichi can’t make head or tail of. He catches some words like _idiot_ , and _womanizer_ , though, and gets the general idea. Shiro looks unapologetic, even as the blushing girl runs away from them. “What, she was enjoying it.”

Kojiro releases an exasperated breath. “We have class in five minutes, and you were scheduling a tryst –”

“Are you my grandpa, no one calls it a tryst nowadays.”

“Uh, guys,” Daichi interrupts, because they aren’t getting anywhere like this. “Can you tell me how to get to AP English?”

Kojiro brightens again. “Oh, that’s where we’re headed too. We’ll show you the way, c’mon – _no_ , Shiro, you’re _not_ skipping class this time!”

Daichi watches them go, Kojiro grabbing Shiro’s ear to pull him along, and thinks that this might not be that bad.

***

“He’s a year younger,” Kojiro explains, looking frustrated as he goes through his text, tapping his fingers against the paper. They had dropped Shiro off at the classroom next door, much to the boy’s continued grumbling. “He gets okay grades, but if his attendance drops anymore I swear he’s going to get kicked out. Oh, I’m sorry, I must be boring you with this!”

Daichi is distinctly reminded of Koushi’s mothering, and he smiles involuntarily. “It’s okay. My best friend does this kind of thing a lot too.”

Kojiro cocks his head, smiling teasingly. “Oh? And what kind of -”

“ _Not_ like that.” He’d probably have more luck clarifying that Koushi was a guy, but that would be an indirect lie, and Koushi has repeatedly told him that he looks like he’s constipated when he’s lying. Not the best way to introduce yourself to someone.

“Uh huh,” he says, just as the teacher enters the room. Daichi shrinks back in his seat, not wanting to be seen. He can get his slip signed after the class is over, right? That way he won’t –

“I hear there’s a new student in our class,” the teacher says jovially, twirling a pen in the air. “Please stand up and introduce yourself – I’m sure we’d all like to know you better.”

 _Why_.

“And make sure you get your slip signed first thing every period,” she adds, and Daichi decides that he hates AP English.

***

“Stop chewing loudly, you’re so gross, Shiro.” __

“I don’t wanna eat too much today!! I’ll get fat before my date.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“You’re both gross,” the blond complains, and his empty tray clatters as he slams the table. Neither of them pay any attention to him.

Daichi blinks. “Uh.”

“Don’t mind them,” the blond says, turning to face him. Some of the people at this table are stunningly pretty, which is why Daichi is incredibly relieved to find someone who isn’t. “They’re always like this.”

“You get used to it,” Yui pipes up when she finishes her mouthful of sandwich.

“So are they –”

There’s a chorus of “Nope,” and Daichi gets that distinct feeling of déjà vu again, back when everyone in school was convinced Sorey and their manager were dating. He wonders if they’re going to fare a bit better now that he’s not around to interrupt them in awkward moments.

Instead of dwelling on the display of purely platonic affection in front of him, his eyes wander to the next obvious choice, like in a movie, drawn by the pure magnetism of the absolute hunks sitting at the table a little further away towards the windows.

Daichi really, really needs to stop thinking sarcastically, because in this instance, it backfires on him.

There are three extremely tall boys and a few others seated at the table, most of them with Asian features. The blond stands out, as the tallest of the trio, frowning down at whatever he’s eating (Daichi can’t see it from this angle). The boy right next to him is lecturing a smaller, wild-haired kid who has made the unfortunate decision of dyeing his hair orange. He’s cute enough, in a stoic way. The one who catches his attention, however, is the boy who’s talking to the blond with a grin on his face. Black, outrageously messy hair hangs over one side of his face, and a voice in Daichi’s head supplies _never got out of the scene phase_. His clothes are pretty normal-looking, if a little ratty. Leather jacket, some sort of white band tee, and black jeans. The others are dressed similarly, except in different colours.

Stout Macho Guy looks up at that point, probably feeling offended about someone checking them out, and Daichi turns to Oikawa hurriedly. “Who’s, um, that guy with the haircut?”

“Do you mean K –” Turnip-Head starts, and then looks in that direction. “Oh!!” She goes silent.

Daichi looks around the table. No one is volunteering any answers.

_Great, my first day and I already stepped on a minefield._

 

“That’s Iwaizumi, and he’s an asshole. All you need to know about him,” Oikawa says smoothly, and shifts his attention to his plate.

Wow.

Yui picks up the conversation where it left off, nervously looking at Oikawa once. “Um, what Tooru means is that they don’t really talk to us much, so they might come off as a bit stuck up. Sorry, Daichi.”

Everything about this conversation screams _mortal enemies_ or _really bad breakup_ , and when Daichi’s eyes stray to the table just a little away from them, he can literally feel the laser-glare trained upon Oikawa. He raises an eyebrow at Turnip-Head and the guy starts to shake his head very frantically in response as Oikawa picks on the scowling black-haired kid, oblivious to this exchange. Oh, okay. He can find out which one it is later.

“The Asian kids here are pretty tight, which I’m grateful for,” the brown girl says primly. “Unfortunately, they recently moved from –”

“Let me guess, Alaska,” Daichi says.

“Yes, how did you know?”

This shit is a joke, isn’t it? “They’re underdressed for a really cold day, so I assumed.” He aims his best sheepish grin at the girl, waiting for the _just like you_ retort that never comes. He must not be very convincing, because she coughs and turns red. Yikes. He’s not good at dealing with angry girls. Or girls in general.

Yui is giving him a strange look. “Are you okay, Daichi? You look kinda…”

Constipated, in all probability. “Don’t mind me!” He looks away, surveying the background while he munches on his sandwich (it tastes even more terrible than the ones back ho- back in San Francisco) and his face prickles. Someone is watching him.

It’s not at his table. They’ve all dissolved into conversation, having gotten out of questioning him for the day, so he looks around for the source. His eyes are drawn back to the people at the other table again, and this time, there’s the guy from before staring at him.

The gaze unnerves him. Never mind the fact that the boy is pretty hot, his eyes are almost catlike in their observation of him. Or it would be catlike, if the guy didn’t have the build of the human equivalent of a panther.

He wants to ask, _who’s that?_ But he’s not in a romance novel, and he doesn’t need someone getting on the poor guy’s case just because his staring unnerved him. Maybe he just overheard the Iwaizumi thing. The aforementioned boy looks pretty pissed as he picks his roll to pieces anyway.

There’s something he’s missing here, but there’s no time to think about it.

“So are you considering joining a club yet?” Oikawa says, pulling him away from his thoughts. “I’m sure the athletic clubs will be scouting you soon enough.”

“Uh, I’m not sure about that.” Volleyball is still a sore spot. He’s still going to have to find something to do during homeroom, though.

“Well, you can always sit with me in homeroom!”

***

All thoughts of homeroom flee his mind when he walks into the next class, and Cutie Panther is sitting in a middle row, with the only empty seat next to him.

(Somewhere in Love Live! playing hell, Koushi is laughing at him.)

He nearly trips over his own feet getting to the desk. The teacher mercifully lets him off the hook for introductions this time, but from the titters that rise in the classroom he’s embarrassed himself enough with the introduction earlier this morning.

The stare from the guy doesn’t let up once he’s actually sunk down in his seat. He aims his eyes straight ahead. Where is the I-take-no-bullshit-from-anyone Daichi from the day before yesterday?

(Back in San Francisco with a tiny volleyball team.)

“Thinking out loud?”

He swivels around, eyes wide. “What did I say?”

“Besides your little introduction in the first class? Not much.”

Daichi’s face burns, eyes twitching in irritation. The asshole ( _not an asshole, be open-minded, Daichi_ ) has a smug smirk on his face.

What the hell.

They’re doing chemistry (and isn’t that a fucking irony) and at present it involves a lot of droning on about organic compounds. Daichi’s glad his AP lessons paid off, but his head is spinning ten minutes into the class. The teacher is a complete, utter bore.

“You look disappointed,” Cutie Panther notes. Daichi thinks of the name in vicious glee, imagining the horrified face he would make if he heard the name out loud.

He should probably not think about that so soon after the first words they guy said to him. “Is he always this…”

“Dreary? Yeah.” Cutie Panther looks up at the blackboard, which is distressingly empty for a chemistry lesson involving atomic structures. “You learn to tune him out after a while.”

“Huh.” Daichi turns his head back to the board. All the other people in the class actually do seem to be half-asleep.

“Not gonna complain?”

“I’ve read this material before.” He’s more concerned about the rest of the class, but he supposes they’re already used to this teacher and probably have tuitions lined up for their SATs.

“A regular smart protagonist.”

Daichi whips his head around. The expression on Cutie Panther’s face is wry. “I did catch some of your introduction this morning, like I mentioned.”

“That’s – I’m _not_ ,” is what he finally hisses, internally fuming. “That’s different!”

(“ _Hello, I’m Daichi Sawamura, and I’m from San Francisco.” Snickers in the background._ “ _I like sports, I guess. Volleyball. I like mathematics too.”_ )

“Oh? And what makes you not so much of a novelty than, pray, Bella Swan?” He’s looking at him keenly, and Daichi is really, _really_ not thinking straight, in any sense of the word, because he blurts, “For one, I’m tan, and uh, a volleyball player.”

“A natural brunet, then?”

( _“Your origins, Mr Sawamura?”_

 _“Oh, um. I’m adopted.” The easiest white lie. “Part Japanese, but I can’t speak it much. Sorry.”_ )

“Nature compromised on the hot and blond part,” he quips, turning his gaze to the teacher. The man isn’t really paying them much attention, and from the corner of his eye he can see the name on the copy on his seat partner’s desk. Kuroo.

Huh.

“Your hair is already pretty lethal.”

Daichi whips his head around. “Did you say something?”

He looks startled, but only for a second. “Just that all the _tan, hot and volleyball player_ exercise has proved is that you’re very acquainted with Stephenie Meyer’s works.” The boy smiles lazily, but his eyes are razor-sharp. “Lucky for you.”

“L-lucky?!” Great, now he’s stammering. And no he hasn’t read that goddamn book, he’s just aware of how the first few chapters because he picked it up years ago in the library. Not that it’ll do him much good now to admit it.

“Lucky that it’s me, and not someone else. Although, I’m sure you’ll be eaten alive soon enough.” The bell rings, and he gets up, swinging his jacket over his shoulder. He does not smoothly flee the room, which is somewhat of a relief. “Maybe you should let me walk you to gym – you’re enrolling for volleyball club, right? I’m a member – I can introduce you to the team captain.”

“And why exactly would I do that?”

This time around, his grin is as sharp as his eyes. “Don’t they always say to cozy up to the captain?”

***

Daichi does not, in fact, cozy up to the captain, or join the volleyball team.

Cutie Panther ( _Kuroo, his name is Kuroo, don’t be an asshole_ ) expresses his great dismay at this all the way to the gym, where he’s forced to let him go. There are a gaggle of kids staying back in the gym while the rest of them take the long way to other classes, and Daichi recognizes some of them from Kuroo’s table at lunch. The wild orange-haired boy and a pretty blond girl, as well as the tall bored-looking blond kid, are all listening to him speak about formations.

The heavily scowling kid who appears next to Daichi to stare at them is familiar too, and he realizes, belatedly, that Oikawa had introduced him at lunch as The Brat.

“They’re terrible,” the kid mutters.

“Excuse me?”

“They’re terrible at volleyball. Especially the orange one.” He wrinkles his nose in distaste. “I’m glad I don’t have gym with him.” And with that bit of information, he passes him by, probably to his next class. Daichi watches him go, wondering at the resentment in his tone. Is it because he’s not allowed to play? Sour grapes because they’re more talented?

“He’s a terrible setter too, in case you wanted to know,” Oikawa’s voice drifts through the air. Daichi turns to see the other boy walking in his direction, lazy smile firmly set on his lips. “He never auditioned, but – well, you understand me, don’t you?”

“I –” when it comes down to that, Daichi isn’t sure at all. “I don’t judge by appearances.”

Oikawa stops.

He literally just stops mid-walk to the classroom, and there’s an awkward fifteen second pause. Daichi shifts uncomfortably, but holds his ground. Everyone else has already moved along, and they’re standing just clear of the gym itself.

“That’s useful information,” he says finally. “It might even help you in these surroundings,  Sawamura!” His tone is light and airy, and Daichi does not understand in the least why it feels like something extremely important took place.

He can still hear the faint sound of volleyballs smacking the court inside the gym, a voice calling out orders.

Oikawa moves, and Daichi moves, trancelike, in the opposite direction. His homeroom’s past the first set of stairs, not the second further back.

It feels like he missed something really big, and it irritates him.

***

“So someone pointed out your mistake in confirming the volleyball player thing? That’s all?”

“No, you don’t get it–” he breaks off, right in the middle of the conversation. Koushi’s voice drifts over the line, worried. “Daichi? Is something wrong?”

He can’t believe it.

“Oh my _god_.” That bastard, making him worry for _nothing_!

“ _What?_ ”

“NOTHING.”

“Damn it, Daichi, you did not interrupt my Sweet&sweet Holiday combo on expert to be cryptic about something. Out with it.”

Sometimes Daichi curses Koushi’s perceptiveness. “I just have a book to buy.”

“Are you finally going to read the entirety of –”

“ _No_.”

He’s definitely going to put a fucking copy of Twilight in Kuroo’s bag the next day, anyway. _Lucky_ indeed. He was wrong, sometimes people are as _every bit of an asshole_ as they look.

Somewhere outside, a cat meows, almost in sarcastic agreement.

***

19:56, brokuto

are you sure?

19:57, kubro

I smelt him. He’s there.

20:00, brokuto

Fucking hell. You want backup?

20:01, kubro

He doesn’t know. Not that it stopped Oikawa before.

20:02, brokuto

Akaashi says to wait and see.

20:03, kubro

Translation: No harm done. See you at the same spot?

20:04, brokuto

Old Huntress’s spot. Got it.

**Author's Note:**

> well. this is it, the fic I reread twilight twice over for. no, kuroo is not edward cullen or of his bloodsucking kin, sorry to disappoint.
> 
> BUT I'M EXCITED. I hope y'all will tag along for the ride!


End file.
